The present invention relates to techniques for displaying financial information, and in particular, income-tax information.
Many individuals and businesses are required to prepare and submit financial information on an annual or quarterly basis. For example, individuals and businesses are required to prepare annual income-tax returns. Many of these individuals meet these obligations using financial software, such as income-tax preparation software and/or financial-planning software.
When using financial software to prepare an income-tax return, an individual is typically asked to provide financial information and supporting documents in response to a large number of questions. Unfortunately, the resulting process is time consuming, frustrating and often obscures the consequences of the user's decisions on the user's resulting income tax (such as an amount owed or an eventual refund). In particular, financial software often collects the financial information using a so-called ‘bottom-up’ approach, and the consequences of all of the collected financial information is only presented when answers to all of the questions have been received. Consequently, it is typically very difficult for the user to understand the financial impact of an answer to a given question. This lack of an intuitive financial understanding can prevent the user from making informed decisions that are in the user's best financial interests.